


But I Will Never Forget!

by debwalsh



Series: Deb’s Fictober Surprise! [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Child Bucky Barnes, Child Steve Rogers, First Meeting, Gen, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, School Yard Bullies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 01:54:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16316906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh
Summary: Have a little baby Steve and Bucky to cleanse your palate.Steve never liked bullies.  Never.  Turns out, neither did Bucky Barnes.





	But I Will Never Forget!

**Author's Note:**

> Surprisingly, writing this really made me flash back to childhood. Steve and I have a lot more in common than just our Irish ancestry.

Steve Rogers learned from an early age that his own company was the best company.It didn’t matter if the other kids were forming teams to play baseball and no one picked him.It didn’t matter if the other kids pooled their resources to get penny candy at Fosdick’s Candy Emporium, and no one asked him to join.It didn’t matter if they all passed around the latest funny papers and tossed them in the trash before they’d ever pass them on to him.

It didn’t matter. Really, it didn’t.

At six years old, Steve Rogers was the smallest kid at St. Mary of the Mount.  Small and sickly, with thick glasses that only half hid a semi-permanent squint and a permanent scowl, a funny tilt to his head because he was always straining to hear, and an odd twist to his walk because his back was dodgy.  Nobody wanted to have someone who wasn’t put together right on their team, and that wasn’t even counting his asthma. 

So when the other kids poured out of the school to take advantage of recess, Steve Rogers would retire to a quiet corner with scraps of paper and a pencil nub, and he would draw.

Today, Maisie Edwards was feeling under the weather, so she sat nearby, out of the path of the kickball, huddled miserably into her coat as she sniffled and coughed and blew her nose like she was a tugboat in the harbor.

Steve didn’t have an opinion one way or another, but it was kinda nice to not be the only person not playing, even if Maisie did have enough germs to put Steve in the hospital for a good long while.

But Steve wasn’t an unkind child. He might be treated unkindly, but that didn’t mean he was unkind himself.  He knew that Maisie wasn’t feeling well, and it was his nature to try to cheer her up.  So he used his scraps to sketch out a little girl not unlike her, and then he sketched pretty dresses that could be cut out to dress the little girl figure.  Just before Sister John Joseph blew the whistle to signal the end of recess, he got up and walked over to where she sat, and thrust the papers at her.

“For you,” he announced gruffly, and when she didn’t take them, he thrust them at her again.  “Won’t bite.  Don’t got as much germs as you do today, neither.”

She peered up at him doubtfully, but she finally took the scraps of paper.  He nodded once, and stalked off, ready to take on the latest jibes and barbs from the other kids.  Didn’t matter.  He was used to it.  He could take it.  He could do it all day.

But when he got closer to where his classmates were falling into neat, regimented lines, he saw Moose Applewhite shoving at Joey Capuano, sending the smaller kid skidding across the gravel.  Joey cried as he struggled to his feet, the knees of his school trousers torn out, the skin already red with blood.  Moose let him get halfway to his feet before he planted his foot in the small of Joey’s back, and gave a hard push.  Joey went sprawling, his hands scraped through the gravel.

Steve winced; he knew how much gravel burns could hurt, and they never healed quiet right, either.  None of the teachers had noticed Moose and Joey, so that left it to Steve to set things right.  He launched himself at Moose, 40 pounds of swirling, swearing, swinging Steve.

Moose must’ve seen him coming, because he turned and swatted at Steve, and Steve went tumbling into the gravel not far from where Joey was gingerly picking tiny stones out of his palms.  “You okay?” Steve gasped out before he turned and catapulted himself onto Moose’s back.

“Yea-ah,” Joey whined, still picking at the gravel that had skinned his hands.

Steve managed to climb up Moose’s back and was pounding on his shoulders with everything he had.  Moose did something strange, and next thing Steve knew, he was flying again, this time like a skipping stone spiraling toward the water, only instead of water, he felt himself hit gravel again.  At least he’d arched his neck so his face didn’t hit the ground.  That would’ve been tough to explain to his Ma.

He lurched back to his feet and took a stumbling step back toward Moose.  He hadn’t counted on Moose having a sloppy but surprisingly effective uppercut, or the sensation of flying backward at the force of it knock Steve off his feet again.

Then there was Maisie’s voice crying out, ”He’s over here!” and another voice that sounded like laughter and sunshine yelling, “Hey!  Pick on someone your own size!”

&&&

“They’re real nice an’ all.  But you know, I can’t be speakin’ to you.  The other girls wouldn’t let me play with them if’n I was nice to you.  You know how it is, Steve.”

“Yeah, Maisie, I do.  I don’t ‘spect anything from you.  Just thought them paper dolls might help you feel better.  So’s you don’t go sneezing all over me, huh?”

“Yeah, right, Steve.  See you around.”

And she was gone, slipping back to the school yard and the other kids who were milling around and playing now that the school day was done.  Parents were collecting some of them, and others had no place they had to be right away, so the school yard was even more chaotic than at recess.  Steve’s Ma worked at the hospital, so Steve’d get himself home, make himself and Ma a sandwich so there’d be something waiting for her when she got home. Although tonight, he was kinda sore, and his jaw hurt from that uppercut Moose got in ... he was gonna have to explain the bandages on his knuckles, too ...

He really hadn’t expected anything, but it was nice that she brought help, even if he hadn’t needed it.  He wasn’t about to admit that without help, he might’ve been in worse shape than he was.

That help, in the form of the new kid in the grade above Steve’s, came over to him then and stuck out his hand.  “Name’s James Buchanan Barnes.  Wanna be best friends?”

“Why, won’t nobody play with you?” Steve demanded churlishly, as he crossed his arms over his thin chest and nodded his head toward the school yard and the rest of the school.

Barnes stuffed his hands into his trousers pockets and shrugged.  “Nobody else worth playing with.   Rest of ‘em would’a let that little kid get beat to a pulp.  But not you.”

“I don’t like bullies,” Steve announced, puffing out his skinny chest.  “I had ‘im on the ropes - didn’t need your help.”

“Nah, I get that.  Just making a name for myself, being new at school and all.  So, whaddya say?  Best friends?” he asked again hopefully, digging his hand out of his pocket and shoving it at Steve again.

Steve stared at the hand for a second before he batted it away.  “Wanna be best friends, y’gotta do it right,” he complained, bringing his own hand up and spitting in the palm.  “Just you remember I don’t need no help winning fights,” he added, shoving his spit-covered hand toward Barnes.

“Yeah, yeah, tough guy!  I’ve seen you in action!  But I will never forget!” Barnes promised, spit in his own hand and then slapped it against Steve’s, turned it into an enthusiastic handshake.  “So what’s your name, slugger?”

“Steve.  And I ain’t callin’ you ‘James Buchanan Barnes’, neither.  Got enough Jimmys and James’s and Jims.  Buchanan, huh?  Bucky it is, then.”

“Bucky. Huh.  I kinda like that.  So, Steve, where’s a guy gotta go to get some penny candy to share with his new best friend, huh?”

Steve just grinned.  Maybe having a friend wouldn’t be so bad after all.

END

**Author's Note:**

> I’m really pleased that people are reading and enjoying these short pieces!


End file.
